> In a revision to a technical paper on their methods, researchers cut Germany’s pandemic-related deaths estimate by 37%, pulling its excess death rate below those of the United Kingdom and Spain1.
As a German, this was obvious to me when it happened, but the vaccinism was so deep, that anyone who dared to question the status quo was treated like a traitor.
> The reproduction rate has risen to 1.1 - that means that ten people will pass the virus on to 11 more people. To keep the pandemic in check this level should be below one.
So Germany is going for total eradication of this virus? What makes them think that’s possible.
>Is Austria on a different track when it comes to the epidemic?
Austria and Switzerland have shockingly high vaccine skepticism rates when compared with other advanced European countries like Ireland or Denmark.
I have no explanation for why this just that when they were measuring vaccine skepticism Switzerland and Austria were up there with Romania and Bulgaria and I was spitting out my coffee at the chart.
So it could be N95 masks are effective but other mechanisms are letting down these populations.
> Fair enough, but what are you going to do? Round them up in camps and forcibly inject them at this point?
Given that up until very recently there was quite little in way of actual restrictions on unvaccinated in Germany, this is really just a false dichotomy.
> Guess in which of these countries you can have polite (even if heated) dinner conversations about politics!
Yes, but that was before vaccination scepticism and AfD (new-ish right wing party that made waves the last few years and now sits in the Bundestag too). Now we (Germany) see similar vitriol. We even had murder (some guy murdered the cashier at a petrol station because they were outraged he asked to wear a mask) and as recent as this week headlines about violent anti-vaccination protests. We also read about splits in families similar to what we were used to reading about from the US. Looks like we are catching up.... /s
>So far the politicians listened to expert advice which is precisely what I expect from them. And to oir luck the testing infrastructure in Germany is much better than in nearly every other nation (which also means the numbers are closer to reality than e.g. in Italy or the US).
And with all of that Merkel still said that 60% to 70% of the population will end up infected with the virus. It doesn't sound like Germany's going to be much better off than most other European countries.
> Nations that are overcautious may lose far, far, far, far more lives thanks to covid infections than an extremely rare handful of blood clots which haven't even been tied concretely to the vaccine yet. The risk reward analysis on this topic has been really bizarre so far.
You seem to suggest risk-reward analysis be viewed at by the number of deaths.
Germany had to suspend vaccination (temporarily) due to legal reasons and risk of a lawsuit to the state.
> So even if you're aged 12 to 29, if you don't get vaccinated you're gambling at taking away someone else's hospital bed. Which will doom the rest of us.
According to [1] at no point in time since March this year (when they started recording this data) have there been more than 100 hospitalizations in the age group 0-30 in Germany a country with 80+ million inhabitants. If this means doom to all of us I don't know anymore.
>The goal is to keep serious cases to a minimum so they don’t clog the healthcare system...
Reminds me of 2 weeks to flatten the curve. Yet here we are. Why all the sudden are we at risk of clogging the healthcare system with some areas hitting 70%+ adult vaccination rates? Germany already has given out 124,401,062 doses of the vaccine. All I ever see is the goalposts being moved with this stuff.
I have taken the vaccine, but I am hesitant about mandates and vaccine passports.
> Unbelievably, millions of doses are on track to spoil this month, before they can be administered. The bottleneck is now not manufacturing, it’s not supply, it’s just pure bureaucratic dysfunction and chaos, lack of funding and staff, and a stone-faced unwillingness by governors to deviate from harebrained “plans” and “guidelines” even with their populations’ survival at stake.
Is this really true? In Germany there is currently a big outcry because there are not enough vaccine doses available. While probably unavoidable to some degree it would be a shame if people die because of logistical difficulties.
> countries have reached the point where the majority of Covid patients in their ICUs are vaccinated at well below 100% vaccination.
Which countries are you talking about? It's certainly not the case for Germany, and I don't know any other European country for which this would be the case.
> even a week's delay in vaccinating [may] predictably increase the number of deaths in a country
The big impact is not a few days of delay. The big impact is the loss of trust in this vaccine in the general populace.
> I'm assuming that these decisions aren't political and are genuinely being taken for medical reasons. I mean, I sure hope so.
Obvious disclaimer: I'm not a medical expert.
However, I wouldn't be so sure it's a wise decision. I primarily trust Karl Lauterbach's [1] opinion on these matters, and he is actively criticizing the move on Twitter as an overreaction [2].
[1] Karl Lauterbach is the director of an institute for epidemiology at a German university and also a member of the German Federal parliament for the Social Democrats (who are part of the current coalition).
To counter that, the UK is almost certainly much more governmentally corrupt and incompetent than Germany which lead to most of the issues dealing with the pandemic.
> yet the west doesn't go bananas over the flu like it does with malaria.
At least in Germany we had a few killer flu scares. With politicians buying ( and throwing away ) tons of third rate vaccines that had a higher likelihood of making you sick than you had of catching the flu.
As a German, this was obvious to me when it happened, but the vaccinism was so deep, that anyone who dared to question the status quo was treated like a traitor.
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